The Walking Dead
The Walking Dead (aka The Walking Dead:The Game) is an iOS port of the adventure game series based on the comics and TV series of the same name, made by Telltale Games. It was released in the US on July 25th 2012 and the UK on the 26th. Format The game is divided into 'episodes', the different chapters of the story which are available via an in app purchase once the game has been bought. There are 5 episodes in total planned for the first season. On July 26th 2012, Telltale Games announced a second season to be released in 2013. Plot Episode 1: A New Day The first chapter of the game sees the game's main protagonist, Lee Everett (a history teacher from Atlanta) in the back of a police car having killed a state senator who was sleeping with his wife. Whilst being driven, the police car hits one of the zombies (or 'Walkers'), sending the car crashing off of the road. When Lee regains conciousness, he is met by the officer who he was with moments ago, however he has become one of the walkers. Searching for help, he enters a house to see if there's anyone who can inform him of the situation. After listening to a message on the house's answering machine, he comes to the conclusion that the owners of the house are away and that their daughter is being looked after. Lee finds a walkie talkie which he tries to communicate on. The girl who answers is the daughter of the house's owners, an eight year old named Clementine. She explains that she took refuge in a treehouse after her sitter was eaten by the zombies. Lee and Clementine explore to try and find other survivors, and meet Shawn Greene, who takes them to his fathers farm where others have taken refuge. They meet Shawn's father, Hershel. They also meet another family; Kenny, Katjaa and their ten year old son Duck. After failing to save Shawn from a zombie attack, Hershel banishes Lee, Clementine and Kenny's family from the farm. The survivors make their way to Macon, Georgia where they meet more survivors, led by Lilly, along with her father Larry, Glenn, a man trying to find his estranged family, Carley, a journalist from Atlanta and Doug, an IT guy. The group hide inside a drug store owned by Lee's Parents, whose bodies were found by the survivors when they got there. Lilly's father, Larry, suffers a heart attack and needs pills located in the office. However the office requires the key held by Lee's reanimated brother. After Glenn gets trapped looking for supplies, Carley and Lee rescue him, only to learn that there's another person trapped in a building nearby. After killing the zombies in the area, they find the survivor, Irene, who insists she's been bitten and wouldn't want to put anyone else in danger, and, despite Lee's efforts to stop her and calm her down, she shoots herself and the team make their way back to the store. Lee finds his dead zombie brother and kills him, taking the key to the office and getting the pills for Larry. The zombies locate the group and attack the store, forcing Lee to either save Doug of Carley. After the decision has been made, the surviving members of the group make their way to a Motel. Episode 2: Starved for Help Three months pass, and the survivors have all managed to stay alive, but food has begun to run low and Lilly and Kenny are at odds as to who should lead the group. A new member, Mark, has joined the group between the two episodes. Lee and Mark are hunting for game when they come across two high school students, Travis and Ben, and their teacher, David, who is caught in a bear trap. Lee must choose to either amputate the teacher's leg in order to save him, or leave him behind; the former choice leads to one of the students being eaten, while the latter has the same student gravely wounded in a struggle to grab Mark's gun and taken back to camp instead. Either path leads to the rescued David dying and reanimating as a walker, after which Ben Paul - the lone surviving student - relays distressing information: the dead can become walkers without being bitten. Two brothers named Andrew and Danny St. John soon arrive, and invite Lee and the other survivors to stay at their dairy farm, hoping to trade some food for gasoline. Lee takes a portion of the group to inspect the farm. As they begin to mingle and connect with the farm's inhabitants, including the matriarch Brenda, Carley/Doug and Ben are sent to bring the rest of the group over for dinner while Lee and Mark are asked to patrol the electric fence, which has been keeping the zombies away. During this, they are attacked by bandits and Mark is hit in the shoulder with an arrow; Brenda brings Mark inside to treat his wound while the brothers ask Lee to help get rid of the bandits. Lee and Danny later stumble onto a camp that is home to a deranged woman named Jolene, who threatens them with a crossbow and whose daughter had been kidnapped by the same bandits. Lee will either shoot her dead, or allow Danny to shoot her - just before Jolene attempts to reveal something about the dairy. As dinner is prepared, the St. John family's suspicious behaviour finally leads Lee and Kenny to investigate the dairy: Lee finds a blood-soaked slaughter room in the back of the barn, and then Mark, who has had both his legs amputated - the meat of which is being served for supper. After confronting the St. Johns, Lee and several others are locked in the barn's meat locker. Larry falls unconscious from another heart attack, and Kenny panics; believing Larry will shortly reanimate as a walker. Lee will either help Lilly save Larry or help Kenny to euthanize him - either way, Larry is killed by having his head crushed by a block of salt lick. Clementine escapes the meat locker through an opened AC duct and frees the others. Lee overpowers Danny and decides whether to spare or kill him after he falls into one of the bear traps, which the St. Johns had planted to catch other survivors to eat. He then saves Katjaa from Brenda by tricking her into coming into reach of Mark, who has died and come back as a Walker. After rescuing Duck, Lee gets into a fight with Andrew and will either kill or spare him as walkers overrun the farm. Leaving the dairy, the group happens upon an abandoned car full of supplies. In it they find batteries to fit a camera that Lee found at Jolene's camp; which reveals that Jolene was using it to observe the motel, and the implication that the bandits - without food from the dairy - will soon become an imminent threat. Reception The game received very positive reviews, with TouchArcade saying "The Walking Dead appears to be delivering on the comic book's vision, but it's also executing on things that we rarely see in video games. Its people feel like actual people and we're making tough choices as we explore this world as Lee". The game received an 8/10 score and a silver award from Pocket Gamer and a 4/4 'Must Have' from slide to play. Category:Adventure Games Category:Telltale Games Category:Games Category:Horror Games